Balloontales is awesome! Doing me a lot of good, but I still need tips on the application. Here are some letters I put on a Transformers page that I worked on. http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2014/353/d/c/transformers_lettering_trial_by_wielder-d8ae3xs.jpg

Comics Commando

12-19-2014, 03:57 PM

That's a sound effects font you're using, so it's kinda hard to read. You may wanna try a font that's more suited to body copy, so it's easier on the eyes.

Alright I think I fixed the issue. Only thing though, the guy asked if I could do the captions transparent to save some of the art. Is there a way to do that?
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2014/353/7/e/transformers_lettering_trial_by_wielder-d8ae3xs.jpg

Stewart Vernon

12-20-2014, 06:13 PM

Depending on what program you are using to do the lettering, there ought to be a way to make those boxes transparent... but you have to be careful. On a dark page of art like that, if you make the boxes too transparent the text will become difficult to read.

You will probably have to play around with the transparency (they might be called opacity) settings to see what you can get away with...

Redking84

12-21-2014, 02:39 AM

Thanks HDMe. You are right, opacity was the thing. He ended up being content with these letters though.

Comics Commando

12-21-2014, 12:23 PM

On future pages, the artist needs to compose his panels with lettering in mind. I mean, he knows that lettering is gonna be placed, so he needs to leave room if he doesn't want the art covered up. Panel 5 is a real mess with that robot too close to the top...and his head cut off. The panel isn't really "composed" until the lettering is placed. To many new artists don't consider that. FYI--Adobe Illustrator is the pro-choice app for lettering.

I can guarantee that he will! I know that because I'm the penciller. I tinkered with it best I could but I couldn't quite fix it. I looked at a forum covering several ways pencillers could save letterers extra work. Page size was a HUGE issue, I try to address that by drawing in the recommended dimensions on paper. Others included drawing the person that speaks first on the left hand side so the speech bubble tails cross. Thanks a lot for your help on here and all the others that have contributed since I've tried to learn the art of lettering.

Stewart Vernon

12-21-2014, 04:56 PM

Yeah, it's helpful to plan things out. I am not doing the lettering for my web comic strip "by the book" but I'm doing everything so I cut myself some slack :)

But what I do have to do... is script the dialog before I start drawing so that I have an idea of the amount of text I will be dealing with. Then I draw accordingly... and sometimes I have to tweak the text a little to fit around the artwork but not nearly as much as if I drew the whole thing before composing most of the dialog first.